


Dreams.

by doctorkaitlyn



Category: James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 06:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James is alone, he dreams in black and red.  When Q is alone, he barely sleeps.  Set post-Skyfall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> I totally forgot about writing this but when I found it in one of my notebooks today, I decided to spruce it up and post it. I hope you lovely readers enjoy it. x.

When James is alone, he dreams in black and red. He dreams of drowning in oil and water and the blood of an entire country. He dreams of paralysis and fatigue and wounds that continue to gush even through stitches. He dreams of jumping off buildings at the end of the world and falling through the always shifting, never-ending stars. 

He closes his eyes and sees Vesper (far more than he cares to admit) and M, bruised and dead, because of him. He hears them begging for his help and when their hands, slippery with water and blood, close around his wrists, he dreams that they pull him down with them. 

When he wakes up (in Dubai, Paris, Moscow, somewhere off the map), he’s only slept for four hours and he’s immediately back into the world of inhaling gunpowder and constantly tasting blood in his mouth.

***

When Q is alone, he barely sleeps. He runs from it as long as he can, drowning himself in tea, typing madly until his fingers are twisted and contorted and won’t straighten out. He loses himself in keeping track of his equipment and his mug and Bond, always Bond.

But sleep always catches up, usually after he’s ignored it for thirty-six hours or more. It hits him all at once and before he can even take his glasses off, his head is on his desk and he’s pulled under.

Q dreams in grayscale. He dreams of metal turning into liquid and twisting itself around an oak tree on a quiet country road while wails echo somewhere far away. He dreams of pain that envelopes him fully, pain that causes him to scream until he’s choking up blood. He dreams of his fingers failing him, of standing there dumb while M16 is brought down around him.

He wakes up to the tastes of iron and salt in his mouth and to the promise of more sleep that he so desperately needs, if only he closes his eyes again.

Instead, he makes more tea. He’s never liked promises. They’ve always seemed too permanent.

***

When Bond and Q are together, they occasionally fall back into their own patterns. They both dream of blood and pain and death that they cannot stop. Sometimes, they toss and turn so violently that one of them wakes up with a bruised face from the other’s fist, lashing out blindly in the middle of the night.

But mostly, when Bond and Q are together, they dream of nothing at all.


End file.
